OK, Tracie, Your Turn!

I told you I'd show you some pictures of the house. I know these are small, too bad :-p Now you had better figure out how to use that camera of yours and take some for me! These are just a few highlights. The white splotch is where I whited out the address. Don't want any freakies knockin' on the door. I love the kitchen (top right, middle left). They say a kitchen can sell a house (or prevent a sale). It definitely sold this one. The basement stairs shot is looking towards my future studio (which is under the kitchen/dining area). We have painted the wall behind the TV (bottom middle) sage green, but now it looks like an arrow pointing up. We haven't found a focal piece for the wall yet, so we're thinking about temporarily making a sign that says "This End Up" as a joke.
I'll try to find the photos we took when we were house hunting, they are more full empty room shots, but I thought these would do for now. Maybe I should wait to see yours before I send them to you? Hmmm....

Today's "funny" . . .

Tracie sent me this e-mail and I found it quite humorous. I thought I should share it with the rest of the class.

YOU KNOW YOU ARE LIVING IN 2006 WHEN...

1. You accidentally enter your password on the microwave.
2. You haven't played solitaire with real cards in years.
3. You have a list of 15 phone numbers to reach your family of 3.
4. You e-mail the person who works at the desk next to you.
5. Your reason for not staying in touch with friends and family is that they don't have e-mail addresses.
6. You pull up in your own driveway and use your cell phone to see if anyone is home to help you carry in the groceries.
7. Every commercial on television has a web site at the bottom of the screen.
8. Leaving the house without your cell phone, which you didn't have the first 20 or 30 (or 60) years of your life, is now a cause for panic and you turn around to go and get it.
10. You get up in the morning and go on line before getting your coffee.
11. You start tilting your head sideways to smile. : )
12. You're reading this and nodding and laughing.
13. Even worse, you know exactly to whom you are going to forward this message.
14. You are too busy to notice there was no #9 on this list.
15. You actually scrolled back up to check that there wasn't a #9 on this list.

And now you are laughing at yourself :-)

Star Wars birthday, coming up!

I am sick. Again. Ethan got sick earlier this week and stayed home Wednesday and Thursday (after having Monday off for the holiday), then this morning when I got up I felt like crud. At least we always tend to get sick in the same order. First Ethan, then me - right as Ethan is starting to get better, then sometimes Glen gets sick, but not always. He felt tingling in his nose (too much information?) when he went to bed, so I guess we'll see in the morning. I'm not sure if it would be better to all get sick at once or string it out like we do. All I know is that we had better all be better for the birthday party next weekend. It will just be a few of Ethan's friends here at the house. Big surprise (NOT!), it's a Star Wars party! Glen is going to dress up like Darth Vader. It sure is tough to find Star Wars themed birthday stuff! I thought it would be easy with how popular it is. Wrong.

Friends

This is not a recent photo. I am trying to date it and am drawing a blank. I know it's pretty old because we lost Tutter and Sully a long time ago, and Mickey was sadly let go after the "lotion fiasco of 2003." I would say he was around 3 or 3-1/2 in this photo. Anyway, I wanted to prove to him that there was in fact a time when he had stuffed animal friends that he played with. Everything these days is Star Wars and Legos and action figures. Don't get me wrong, these things are fine and all, and he still does have several stuffed animal friends. He can't go to bed without at least 6 of them in bed with him. Bear in the Big Blue House being one (actually, two) of them. He just wouldn't be caught "playing" with them, unless he was practicing his light saber skills on them. I often wonder what happened to Tutter. He lost his tail at one point. I have the feeling Max was responsible for that, and we never did find it. Sully disappeared without a trace, too. Even when we packed up everything to move, they were never found. Kind of strange, his two bright blue stuffed animals would find the same black hole. I know Max hated anything red, but she never seemed to mind blue. Hmmm... I guess we'll never know.

Granny

I was thinking about Granny earlier so I decided to make a page for her. I'll always remember how she was always crocheting the most beautiful tablecloths with the teeniest, tiniest thread. Even while listening to a baseball game, she never seemed to lose her place. Amazing!

Ethan's Kindergarten Photo

Here is his class picture.

Quiz

I took a quiz to find out my Blogging Personality. Here it is:

Your Blogging Type is Logical and Principled

You like to voice your well thought out opinions on your blog. And if someone doesn't what you write, you really don't care! Serious and blunt, sometimes people take your blog the wrong way. But you're a true and loyal friend to those who truly get you.

What's Your Blogging Personality?

Digital Scrapbooking? Sure, why not!

Hmmm... having had all of my scrapbooking stuff packed up for what seems like forever while we finish the basement, I have stumbled into the world of digital scrapbooking. I didn't think that I would like it very much - I'm a texture, touchy-feely kind of scrapbooker. I have to admit, it's pretty cool. Since my pictures have been digital for the past 4 years, they are already on the computer, and I have to fix the red eye and crop and resize anyway - why not do the whole thing on the computer? Thanks to Sam's Club having good developing prices, I can still print them out for albums.
(This layout was done with Traci Sims "Winter Tweed" kit.)

Happy Birthday Grandma!

Happy Birthday Natalie! We hope you are feeling better soon. I love this picture of you rocking out on Glen's iPod last month at Cracker Barrel.

Finally, some SNOW!

We have been waiting for it to snow since Christmas, when Ethan got a sled. Almost 2 months later, we can finally go sledding! There is a little hill between our house and the church next door, so we decided to start off there. There is a golf course that opens up for sledding in Springfield that we have to find. For now, though, the hill outside is perfect. It's not too steep to be tiring constantly walking up it, but it's steep enough that it's a bunch of fun.

Ethan's Latest Obsession

Ethan got a Star Wars Attacktix figure at a birthday party he went to a few weekends ago. Now it's all he wants to play. We went and got him a starter pack as a reward for a great report card, so now he has a small army. They are pretty cool. You "tick" them forward when you move, they have different tick values and actions, and the object is to be the last Attacktix standing. I guess they are a big seller because most of the stores we went to are completely out of them.

Growing up soooooo fast!

The other day Ethan decided he was old enough that he could walk to the bus in the morning by himself. It is down the street, close enough that I can see him, but far enough that I had to think about it for a minute. I decided that he was right, as long as he crossed the street right in front of the house so I could be sure it was safe. Of course I had to take a picture. He is getting less and less cooperative with the whole camera thing. The after school drop off spot is further down the street, so I pick him up in the afternoon. When I asked if he wanted to do it again the next day, he said no. When I asked why not, he answered that it was because he liked to give me big hugs before getting on the bus. I wonder how long that will last? Anyway, the next norning, he decided it was ok to hug me in front of the house and walk by himself again. There is another boy that gets on the bus there, so he has company while waiting. He is growing up so fast.